More Of The Same: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues Still Entertains!

The Good: Very funny, Decent performances
The Bad: Predictable plot and character arcs
The Basics: Cameos and incongruently hilarious lines (along with a surprising amount of social commentary), make Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues a worthwhile sequel!


As we reach the end of the year, I find myself catching movies I missed over the last year. I was actually surprised to discover that Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues came out a whole year ago! I guess that illustrates how excited I was about the Anchorman sequel. My wife, however, is a huge fan of Will Ferrell, so with the release of the trailer to Get Hard, she’s been eager to catch up on the Ferrell films she’s missed over the last two years. We started with Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. We opted for the extended edition of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues because what the hell is the point of the theatrical version when you can have half an hour more of Ron Burgundy?!

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues picks up right after Anchorman (reviewed here!) and for those who have not seen the first film, there is almost no humor in the movie that depends upon the first film. In fact, outside the introduction of Brick Tamland, the humor in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues stands entirely on its own. But for those who are fans of Anchorman, while Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is enjoyable, it is largely a continuation of what came before without much new . . . other than the lines. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is funny and continues the humor of Anchorman which worked best as a collection of hilarious lines, more than a humorous narrative. Like the first one, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is the funniest when it is just playing with funny lines as opposed to moving the film in wacky directions.

After the success of Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone working on the nightly news in San Diego, the pair moves to New York City. There, Veronica is offered a position as a major network news anchor and Ron Burgundy is fired. Six months later, Ron Burgundy is working at Sea World, getting drunk, fired and then unsuccessfully trying to kill himself. Offered a position at GNN, a new 24-hour news network in New York City, by Freddie Shapp immediately after his aborted suicide attempt, Ron Burgundy reunites his old news team to take the job at the cable news company. After getting Champ Kind, Brian Fantana, and Brick Tamland out of their current situations, the quartet goes to New York City where they meet their new boss, Linda (where they are shocked by working for a black woman).

Ron Burgundy adapts poorly to working at the cable station where the primetime anchor, Jack Lime, is better-looking and more popular than he is. While Brick falls for a secretary working for GNN, Ron ends up in a fight with Jack. Challenged to beat Jack’s ratings, despite being at the 2 A.M. timeslot, Ron creates soft news (infotainment) in an attempt to win. When infotainment makes Burgundy a national hit, his formula leads him to unprecedented success. He begins to present his own stories – like smoking crack on the air – and the results are awards, women, and even more success. But Burgundy’s new relationship with his boss and his attempts to keep his old family (winning them back) leads him to real conflict that puts him at odds with his oldest friends. When sweeps week puts him at odds with his ex-wife and his news team,

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is, at best, a series of hilarious lines strung together by a thin plot involving Burgundy’s attempt to dominate cable news. As such, the film includes a pretty time-consuming subplot involving Brick and Chani, musical numbers, and otherwise incongruent comedic exchanges (condoms, horse piss, and the shock of working for a black boss). The film is funny, but is actually quite a bit smarter than one might expect.

Loaded with a social commentary that actually explores the degradation of journalism. While Burgundy creates feel-good pieces and ratingsbait, the commentary is actually impressive. Burgundy sinks a hard-hitting piece on how airplane parts are falling off planes and killing people because the corporate sponsors of GNN have a major stock interest in the airline that is criminally negligent. But, to appease the corporate owners of GNN, Burgundy eagerly jettisons the significant story in favor of a car chase. That Ron witlessly does the wrong thing is one thing, but as an audience able to evaluate the work, it is clear that writers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay had something to say.

It’s easy to overlook the commentary in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues amid troublingly blatant jokes surrounding Ron Burgundy’s racism and the ridiculous plot development of Rob going blind. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues starts to feel repetitive for those who have seen the first Anchorman as Ron refocuses his life on Veronica and his son. The film loses some of its focus as it transfers from being a story of an ambitious idiot working his way up the cable news ladder to achieve popularity when it takes a right turn with Ron and his son Walter rehabilitate a shark they find washed up on the shore of the lighthouse Ron moves into after he goes blind.

The performances in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues are exactly what one expects from a Will Ferrell film that utilizes the strongly comedic cast that was assembled for the first film, along with newcomers (to the franchise) like Kristen Wiig, James Marsden, and Meagan Good. Even Dylan Baker, who usually plays straightlaced, powerful dramatic characters, plays Freddie as goofy and hilarious which is unlike any other performance of his I have seen.

The leads in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues: Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd each reclaim their roles from the first film and they manage to make their characters distinct and funny. The film is funny, entertaining, and has more substance and commentary than the first, though it is more repetitive and familiar than it is audacious and originally. Still, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continued is worth watching!

For other works with David Koechner, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Cheap Thrills
Piranha 3DD
Paul
Extract
The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
Sex Drive
Get Smart
Let’s Go To Prison
Farce Of the Penguins
Thank You For Smoking
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Waiting . . .

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Happy Fifth Anniversary To Me: You’ve Got Mail Is How I Spent (Part Of) It!

The Good: Concept, Final third of the movie, Acting is good
The Bad: Predictable, Drags in the middle
The Basics: After almost twenty years of avoiding it, my wife compelled me to watch You’ve Got Mail and I found it to be good, not great.


Tonight is my five year anniversary with my wife and as the night progresses, we’ve done all of the usual anniversary things (albeit out of order by conventional standards, I think). Tonight, she managed to get me to watch a movie that I think I had no interest in whatsoever and might even have boycotted at the time of its release (send me thousands of CD-ROMs in the mail over the years, AOL, I’ll boycott the film based on your catchphrase!). As it stands, it was not until tonight that I finally saw You’ve Got Mail. You’ve Got Mail is a thoroughly appropriate film for my wife and I for an anniversary (traditionally a time to reminisce about relationships beginning); she and I met on the internet and had a very short courtship before meeting in person, moving in together, and marrying! As such, the speed of the relationship in You’ve Got Mail did not seem at all off to me.

Despite any criticisms which might follow, You’ve Got Mail is better than I expected it to be. My preconception of the film was a cheesy romance film that largely featured two people sitting in front of their computers typing as opposed to interacting in person. The truth of You’ve Got Mail is that it accurately captures the early excitement of on-line relationships and ironically, had the movie focused more on that, it would have been a better film.

Opening with Kathleen Kelly, who is in a romantic relationship with the technophobic columnist Frank Navasky, excitedly e-mailing a mysterious stranger she met in an on-line chatroom for people over thirty, Kathleen’s life is at a turning point she does not yet know about. Unbeknownst to her, her on-line pen pal is Joe Fox, a businessman who is bringing a giant, discount book chain to New York City. Kelly, who inherited her mother’s children’s book store, tries not to see the arrival of Fox & Sons Books as a threat to her business. Joe and Kathleen meet one day at Kathleen’s book store while Joe is out with his (very) young brother and aunt (who, thanks to the family’s complicated geneology, is about twenty years younger than he is). While Joe and Kathleen continue to e-mail one another without knowing who the other is, when Kathleen learns who Joe is at a party, she takes an instant dislike to him.

On the advice of Joe (who does not have details about Kathleen’s specific business to know that he is operating against himself), Kathleen begins to wage a public relations campaign against Joe and his father’s mass-market bookstore. Unfortunately, the result is less-than-stellar and Kathleen has to close her book store. In the wake of Joe ruining her business, Kathleen and Joe begin to run into one another more frequently, with Joe learning that Kathleen is the woman he has been corresponding with on-line. Despite Joe dropping clues to Kathleen that he is her online suitor, Kathleen’s prejudice against Joe takes some time to burn off so their in-person romance can actually begin.

You’ve Got Mail suffers from being an erratic movie that seems to abandon its own premise instead of developing it. While usually, getting away from the film’s catchphrase conceit – in this case the e-mail relationship – would be smart and work well, with You’ve Got Mail, the opposite happens. The movie gets so caught up in the real world, adversarial relationship between Joe and Kathleen and their competing book stores and business philosophies that when the e-mail relationship is abruptly dropped and then equally abruptly picked up much later on in the movie, it feels like the film’s writers actually forgot what they were trying to say with the film.

As a result, You’ve Got Mail is a rare example of a film that has a vastly better final third than the rest of the movie. After mortgaging its premise for most of the airtime, the movie comes back to reassert its original idea in a good way . . . but almost too long after the viewer stops caring. In simpler terms, You’ve Got Mail would have been better if it had either dropped the e-mail relationship near the beginning and moved past that entirely or stuck with it more consistently. As it stands, the relationships become troublingly rendered on both fronts: Kathleen seems unnecessarily dim and Joe is presented with a weird dichotomy (he speaks like a sage, but is treated like a knave).

On the acting front, You’ve Got Mail is more a triumph for Meg Ryan than it is for Tom Hanks. The two play their roles of Kathleen and Joe without the trademark on-screen chemistry that made them box office draws when paired together in the late-90’s. That said, Ryan has a much perkier physical performance than in anything else I have seen her in. She bounces through the beginning of You’ve Got Mail in a watchable and cute way that sells her character (instead of making one feel like they are watching Meg Ryan). Tom Hanks plays Joe Fox with a seriousness and dryness that is compelling to watch. Hanks and Ryan play, as is predictable for a Nora Ephron film, with an incredible ensemble cast that includes Parker Posey (Joe’s initial girlfriend, Patricia), Greg Kinnear, Steve Zahn, Jean Stapleton, Dave Chappelle, and Katie Finneran.

Ultimately, You’ve Got Mail is an enjoyable romance film, but it does not have the timeless quality of some other romantic works from the 1990s and that makes it feel more dated and passé . . . just like AOL.

For other modern romantic movie classics, please check out my reviews of:
When Harry Met Sally . . .
Love, Actually
The American President

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Love Actually With Half The Charm, Cast, And Great Moments: Stuck In Love

The Good: Acting, Some good lines
The Bad: Very predictable plot and character arcs.
The Basics: Stuck In Love is an erratic romantic dramedy that has a family of writers and artists struggling to make sense of their lives after a divorce.


There are a number of different types of romantic comedies. I think the best ones tend to be romantic dramas, the dramedies with great lines, wonderful performances and interesting characters. I’m sure every writer aspires to create the next When Harry Met Sally . . . (reviewed here!) or Love Actually (reviewed here!), but in the world after the greats are written, it’s tough to make the next great romantic movie. Josh Boone’s attempt is Stuck In Love. Stuck In Love is more analogous to The Squid And The Whale (reviewed here!) than Love Actually.

To cut to the chase and eliminate all comparisons, Stuck In Love is a romantic dramedy that is plagued by being erratic and predictable. The film has some incredible highs which are muted by obvious seeding foreshadow elements that lead to the most predictable possible payoffs. The result is a film that is worth watching for about five truly incredible lines and character moments. They are, fortunately, spread out enough to not make the rest of the film entirely miserable, but Stuck In Love is not a satisfying film experience.

Bill Borgens, who is still obsessed with his ex-wife, gets together with his two children for Thanksgiving. His daughter, Sam, tells him that her novel is being published and Bill is upset when it is not the book that he helped her edit. Bill’s son, Rusty, is obsessed with a cute girl in his class, Kate. He spends Thanksgiving stoned, jealous of his sister and returns to school where he reads a poem in front of class that is obliquely about Kate, getting her attention. Rusty is also the only member of the family to visit Erica, Bill’s ex-wife, on Thanksgiving, but it is very awkward. Responding to his father’s advice, he pursues Kate to a party with a big bag of weed and discovers Kate is using coke. Rescuing her from her abusive boyfriend, they flee the party.

Over the course of the year that follows, the Borgens wrestle with the emotional issues that have plagued them since Bill and Erica divorced. Bill works to give up stalking Erica and his fuckbuddy Tricia helps get him registered on singles sites to get him dating again. Still, he clings to the hope of Erica returning. The jaded Samantha develops her first romantic relationship, with Louis. While Samantha steps out of her father’s literary shadow, she and Louis actually fall for one another. At the same time, Rusty works to be a good guy in Kate’s life to help her get off drugs. Events climax at Sam’s book release party when Kate gets champagne and falls off the wagon, sending the Borgens into a tailspin to find her . . . coming together in the process.

The revelation of why Bill is still obsessed with Erica is a remarkably satisfying moment in the film, but it comes almost too late for the viewer to care about or actually believe it. It is very hard to suspend one’s disbelief for a guy who claims to be still in love with his ex-wife, waiting for her to come back because his love and conviction are so strong, yet has casual (and athletic) sex with the neighbor down the street. Stuck In Love feels like a movie trimmed down for time; one line between Bill and Sam serves as the exit of Tricia from the narrative and the disappearance of Kristen Bell’s character from the story is somewhat abrupt. As one who has been rewatching Veronica Mars (reviewed here!), it’s hard not to see Bell’s Tricia as an unremarkable role for Bell, but how little she is in Stuck In Love makes one wish Josh Boone had found more to do with the character and actress.

In a similar way, the film’s resolution is entirely unsatisfying and completely undermines the relationship Erica and her husband, Martin, have. While audiences might cheer for the “happy” ending, to accept it, one has to completely neglect the idea that Erica has had a life of her own outside Bill and her children.

Greg Kinnear gives a solid, but familiar, performance as Bill Borgens. Jennifer Connelly, like Kristen Bell, is underused as Erica. Stuck In Love makes better use of its young cast. Lily Collins is unlike she has been in anything else in which I’ve seen her as the brassy, disillusioned Samantha. She and Logan Lerman have good on-screen chemistry and Collins sells Sam’s change of heart when her character starts looking for the classmate she never noticed before. Despite being cast to look a bit too much like Lerman’s character, Nat Wolff is decent as Rusty. Rusty is a somewhat understated role, but Wolff does well with it, with a casual body language that makes it realistic that a sensitive guy would take to heart his father’s advice to go out and live.

Ultimately, Stuck In Love is underwhelming with moments the viewer is likely to truly enjoy. The result is a movie worth watching, perhaps, once, but not much more than that.

For other works with Lily Collins, please visit my reviews of:
The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones
Mirror Mirror
Priest
The Blind Side

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

So Many Wonderful Actors Create Something Horrible: Movie 43

The Good: Moments of actual humor, Wonderful cast used fairly well.
The Bad: Drawn-out concept, No character development, An equal number of misses as hits
The Basics: Movie 43 is a sketch comedy film that pushes the envelope of good taste with drastically mixed results.


When it comes to comedy films, there are very few that live up to the hype for repeated viewings. When, during a first viewing, viewers find themselves bored or frustrated with the premise of the film, it does not bode well for the film’s longevity in the collective unconsciousness. Slapstick comedies especially suffer from the problem of having limited rewatchability, as do sketch comedy programs. So, last year’s star-studded film Movie 43 had two potential strikes against it before the movie even began. Despite having an incredible cast of classy actors, Movie 43 is little more than an extensive, R-rated episode of MadTV or Saturday Night Live.

Movie 43 trades on its extensive movie-star cast to try to fool viewers into believing they are watching something other than lowest common denominator humor for under an hour and a half. The film, which is loosely held together with a plotline of a failed writer trying to sell his first script to a movie studio executive at gunpoint, is filled with raunchy humor that frequently crosses the line of good taste.

Opening with Charlie Wessler pitching to Griffin Schraeder, Wessler tells stories that he thinks are supposed to be heartwarming and crowd-pleasing. The first is a blind date between a woman who is excited to go out with one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. Davis is rich, successful, single . . . and has a scrotum on his neck, which causes Beth quite a bit of discomfort to see during her dinner with him. That is followed by a couple talking with another couple about their homeschooled son. They tell their new neighbors all about how they haze their son and provide him with awkward high school-level first sexual experiences (which is beyond troubling to the neighbors and the audience). Then comes the “romantic comedy” pitch where a woman asks her boyfriend to poop on her and, after getting some advice, filling up on burritos and laxatives, he feels he needs to rush into meeting his girlfriend’s bizarre request.

The pitches continue with a young man working at a grocery store when the young woman who loves and loathes him comes in and the two give each other sexually explicit small talk . . . over the public address system in the store. There is a parody of an Apple product; the iBabe, which is a life-sized MP3 player in the shape of a naked woman. After the initial advertisements, the makers of the iBabe wrestle with the public relations nightmare of young men whose penises are mangled when they fuck the iBabe and encounter the unit’s cooling fan inside the vagina of the unit. Superhero fans are treated to a sketch wherein Robin is out on a speed date with Lois Lane and then Supergirl when Batman comes and cockblocks him. In another sketch a boy has a girl over for a first date when she has her first period and bleeds through her pants. The three males in the house freak out having no idea how to deal with the event and it only serves to embarrass and horrify her. A brutal segment follows in which two men capture and torture a leprechaun for his gold. Then comes a first date in which a man and a woman play an escalating game of truth or dare. They end up horribly disfiguring and humiliating one another before finally consummating their relationship. The penultimate segment is a hilarious mockery of sports movies. In it, a coach motivates his high school basketball team by pointing out that the students are black and they are going up against a white team so they are guaranteed to win. Partway through the closing credits comes the final segment, a sketch involving a couple that is interrupted by their (animated) cat, Beezel. Beezel has a crush on his owner, Anson, and when Amy walks in on Beezel masturbating to pictures of Anson in a swimsuit, a very violent series of encounters follow.

Such is the type of humor in Movie 43. Sadly, there is not really much more to the movie than the sketches themselves. Movie 43 scores as high as it does with me because it actually is amusing in points. Movie 43 is entertaining and it is funny when it is not being entirely disturbing.

Moreover, Movie 43 is a cinematic example of “better ingredients, better pizza” as it were. Getting Liev Schreiber, Terence Howard, Elizabeth Banks, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Kristen Bell and other a- and b-list actors to perform in the sketches makes them seem like something more than cheap shots and gross-out humor. But, that’s mostly what Movie 43 is; it’s just fortunate that the jokes land as often as they do, or else the movie would be far less than it appears.

For other works with Leslie Bibb, please visit my reviews of:
Iron Man 2
Confessions Of A Shopaholic
Iron Man
Talladega Nights: The Legend Of Ricky Bobby

2/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Morgan Freeman And Greg Kinnear Sell The Rushed/Slow Feast Of Love Well!

The Good: Acting, Characters, Dialogue
The Bad: Pacing!, Abrupt resolutions
The Basics: Good acting and interesting characters make up for a film that seems to gloss over some meaningful moments in the story.


These days, it seems that most of the movies I take in on DVD I find by watching other movies on DVD. That was the way I found Feast Of Love, a film that sold me from the previews I saw when watching another film. After all, director Robert Benton did not grab me with the last movie of his I saw: he wrote The Ice Harvest (reviewed here!). But the preview of Feast Of Love looked too good to pass up and so I decided to give it a spin.

Largely, I enjoyed the movie and my "recommend" is much more firm than my rating. I enjoyed Feast Of Love, which is a rather able romantic drama, but it suffers in too many places from being a movie. Romance in films is rushed and though I might seem biased as I am not usually a fan of voice-overs, the voice-overs from Morgan Freeman's Harry Stevenson at the end of the movie are just plain terrible. Instead of taking time to illustrate key scenes, they are simply told to the viewer and this is an unfortunate conceit in a movie where relationships come together and fall apart (television, on the other hand, tends to have enough time to breathe and thus makes for a much better medium for realistic romance stories).

The wise college professor Harry Stevenson is on sabbatical following the death of his son, which has left him somewhat estranged from his wife, Esther. He has taken to spending his days wandering, observing and hanging out at Bradley Smith's coffee bar. Harry and Bradley are friends and they end up watching one of Kathryn's - Bradley's wife - softball games and afterward, Harry observes Kathryn falling in love with a woman from the visiting team. As Bradley's marriage falls apart, young ex-junkie Oscar falls in love at first sight with Chloe, who easily reciprocates his love.

As Oscar and Chloe struggle to pay the rent and grow their love, while avoiding Oscar's psychotic, alcoholic father, Bradley begins a romantic relationship with his realtor, Diana. Diana, who has been sustaining an affair with a married man, provides a real chance for Bradley to find love and happiness, despite the fact that the pair has moved into a house that seems to have been the downfall of several romantic relationships (conveniently this puts Bradley right next door to Harry).

Unfortunately, the trailer has key lines in it that indicate exactly how Bradley's relationship with Diana ends, but I shall not repeat them here. D'oh! Okay, so his relationship with Diana ends and, unfortunately for the flow of the film, the woman who next enters Bradley's life is given such a truncated appearance that the relationship is never truly believable. And that's the serious drawback throughout much of Feast Of Love. I like movies that have big casts, a lot of characters to keep track of and stories that interweave. I can live with that. In Feast Of Love, there are essentially three couples (Harry/Esther, Oscar/Chloe, and Bradley and whomever he is with at the time) and most of the time is spent on Bradley and his romantic flailings.

The problem is Bradley's two post-Kathryn relationships both appear to be missing pretty significant chunks to them and the viewer feels a bit jerked around by the absence of the scenes of important growth for the character and his romantic self. Cheating that with the voice-over near the end just feels cheap.

This is not to say that Feast Of Love is bad; it's not, but the pacing is seriously off. Actually, one of the nicest things about the movie comes in the character of Harry. Harry is presented as an erudite, solid character who could be one of the Greek Gods he speaks of in the opening monologue, he is that great. Portrayed by Morgan Freeman, Harry instantly connotes a wizened, credible professor. But the genius of how Harry is presented is that he is not omnipotent. The reason so many smart people need therapy is because we (humans) all have blind spots. We may be exceptional in some areas, but in the areas that hit us most deeply, we often cannot see straight. Harry, who is presented as easily the smartest character - both in terms of reason and emotions - has a huge blind spot and his friendship with the young Chloe finally exposes that blind spot to him. His character arc is one of the most subtle and deepest in the entire movie.

The most obvious arcs come from Bradley, who has far more obvious blind spots. Bradley wants to believe in love so much that he doesn't see what is, he idealizes his relationships instead. So, for example, when he takes Kathryn to a kennel to see dogs, he becomes convinced that she is over her hatred of dogs because she tolerated one of the dogs she saw there. That type of naive blindness is difficult to watch, but essentially human and works wonderfully for viewers to empathize with Bradley. Of course, half the time, we are simply frustrated by how Bradley doesn't get it, but it works.

Bradley is played by Greg Kinnear and he is the perfect everyman for the role. Kinnear has the ability to slouch slightly to connote deep emotional wounds in his character even before he begins to speak. And when Bradley is in love and believes everything in his life is fine (blinders firmly attached) Kinnear holds himself up with a confidence that seems perfectly natural and real.

The cast is rounded out with performances by Selma Blair (Kathryn), Jane Alexander (Esther), and Fred Ward (Oscar's father, Bat). But for a change it is young actors who made me truly appreciate their characters: Alexa Davalos as Chloe and Toby Hemingway as Oscar. First, the pair has great on-screen chemistry. From the first moment Davalos appears on screen, there is no doubt in the viewer's mind that her character wants exactly what Oscar wants and Davalos manages this without speaking. Second, each actor is fearless in their portrayals. Hemingway has the look of an ex-junkie in this, but he manages to make the audience believe fully that he has put that life behind him. As for Davalos, a quick trip over to the IMDB revealed to me that this was not the first thing I had seen her in, so I have to say that I was impressed by how she played scared. Davalos had very tough roles in Angel and The Chronicles Of Riddick (reviewed here!) and I never made the association with her often terrified and very young-seeming character in Feast Of Love. Truly, this is her master performance.

On DVD, Feast Of Love the film looks and sounds good, but it comes with no real bonus features. There are cast biographies of the players, but that's it. This is pretty disappointing for a film of this caliber. In general, this is a worthwhile drama likely to satisfy most.

For other films featuring Morgan Freeman, please check out my reviews of:
The Dark Knight Rises
Invictus
The Dark Knight
Wanted
Lucky Number Slevin
March Of The Penguins
War Of The Worlds
Batman Begins
Million Dollar Baby
Dreamcatcher
Unforgiven
Driving Miss Daisy

7/10

Check out how this film stacks up against others I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where the works are organized from best to worst!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Failing To Shine; Bursting The Hype Of Little Miss Sunshine

The Good: Steve Carell's acting, Moments of social commentary
The Bad: Not funny, Not amusing, Not entertaining - Miserable tone!
The Basics: In a disappointingly stark movie, characters are introduced and they spend a journey from New Mexico to California not growing until the movie simply ends.


I was having a conversation with a friend about the Oscars and I made the comment that the reason the Oscars are done annually is because we need a marker for "the best of what we have" as opposed to "the best of what could be." In simpler terms, if the Academy held out for movies that all reached a certain standard, there might not be Oscars every year. There would be no best picture in a year lacking extraordinary films. This is why the Oscars have to be done annually; otherwise, it might be two, three, even five years between Oscar ceremonies. Never have I believed this more than after watching Little Miss Sunshine, one of the five nominees for last year's Best Picture award.

When Olive Hooper makes it into the finals of the Little Miss Sunshine pageant, her family packs themselves up into a broken-down VW Bus and heads from New Mexico to Southern California. The family, miserable over the failures and foibles of one another, becomes progressively more miserable as they travel, save Olive, whose sunny disposition makes it seem like she might be a contender. As the journey goes on, obstacles pop up to thwart the attempt to get Olive to the pageant on time.

Wow, was this a bad movie. Reviewers and critics keep calling this a gem of a movie and I think they're full of it. Here's why: all of the characters are either miserable or obnoxious. Every single one. Olive, perhaps the least offensive, is guilty solely of being an excited kid. Richard is a motivational speaker who can't sell his motivational program, his wife is essentially a doormat, and they are raising one of the most annoying - though well-motivated teenagers in film history. Uncle Frank is a suicidal homosexual who becomes the most empathetic (I wanted to kill myself just watching this miserable bunch!) and Grandpa is the new cliche of the uninhibited, cranky elder who is less responsible than the youngest. The thing here is that all of these characters are miserable and if I wanted miserable characters, I could have spent time with my own family rather than watching this one on screen.

So, what does Little Miss Sunshine do right? I like the concept. Road movies, miserable family movies, movies with gay characters, movies with suicidal characters, these are all things I usually get right behind. If anything, I was biased toward the concept doing into the movie. I liked the conceptual message about the beauty pageant at the end of the movie. Olive's routine is the perfect hyperbole of the direction these insane beauty pageants for CHILDREN go. The reaction of some of the judges, I thought, was amusing as it revealed the psychosis of the culture surrounding these type of pageants.

Two of the characters and actors worked perfectly, as well. Paul Dano plays Dwight, the teenage son who has taken a vow of silence after reading Nietzsche. While the characterization is betrayed for plot predictable convenience, Dwight is an interesting, if completely angry, character. Dano manages to portray the youth with an angry indifference that is hard to sustain. Of course, spending time with this family could make anyone sustain this level of anger.

If there is a gem in Little Miss Sunshine, it is Steve Carell. Carell plays Frank, who has inadvertently survived a suicide attempt and is miserable. I applaud Little Miss Sunshine for presenting the idea that youth should be told about homosexuality and suicide so as to destigmatize both and Carell plays Frank with a seriousness and desperation that I've not seen in him in any other role. He is utterly convincing as the reluctant survivor and as he quietly suffers throughout the movie, he becomes the most empathetic character on screen.

The other actors either fail to dazzle or fail to act. Newcomer Abigail Breslin, who portrays Olive, is essentially playing a young girl on her quest to be a star. Breslin is a young girl getting into acting, so this role is not much in the way of an acting challenge. Similarly, I was seriously underwhelmed by Oscar-winner Alan Arkin as Grandpa.

I like movies that defy "types" and I can live with dark movies (Magnolia and The Empire Strikes Back are two of my top three favorites and Brazil remains my absolute favorite film). I usually have a problem with schmaltzy life-affirming drecht, but even on that front, a well-messaged movie can satisfy me (see The Spitfire Grill, reviewed here!). Little Miss Sunshine fails, in part, because it mixes the types at all the wrong times. So, for example, Frank's story could go pretty much either way to satisfy the viewer with his character arc; he could succeed in trying to kill himself again or he could get over his problems and become determined to live. Ultimately, he does neither and after a particularly brutal character moment for Frank in the movie, his character essentially is dropped. There's no resolution, there's no growth, there's simply a disappearance of the issues that make Frank intriguing to watch. In a similar fashion, Richard's character ends the film without direction, which seems necessary given how much time is spent exploring - and shattering - his dreams.

Little Miss Sunshine is a stark movie, with a minimal soundtrack that contributes to the feeling that this is an empty movie. The length of the song near the end of the movie contrasts the rest of the film in a way that is painfully drawn out. I suppose Nietzsche might enjoy the starkness of the film and perhaps that was the point by directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (how it took two people to direct this, I'll never know!), but if it was, it failed on that front, too. The emptiness of the movie creates a vacuum that can only be filled by compelling characters that the viewer empathizes with. We do not. In Magnolia, P.T. Anderson creates an emotionally wrenching atmosphere and he uses an operatic soundtrack (sometimes literally, as he uses "Carmen") to connect the viewer to the characters and connect the characters to a larger world and the viewer. Lacking that, Little Miss Sunshine is simply void.

And, as with any road movie, part of the question that ought to be asked is "Is it about the journey or the destination?" Kevin Smith laments about Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back that the studio insisted on getting the protagonists out of Jersey and into California as quickly as possible and in the commentary, it's amusing to hear him say how they insisted it was one type of movie and he just didn't realize it (telling a writer-director what type of movie they have created probably means either the artist or the businesspeople have missed something, I vote that it's usually the error of the studio, not the creator). Little Miss Sunshine fails here as well. While the majority of the movie is spent on the road, suggesting that what is important here is the journey, the characters do not truly grow as a result of the journey. For each character - even Dwayne whose characterization becomes defied and voided by the trip - the journey simply is an opportunity to reinforce who they already are. They do not grow and change so much as illustrate the initial characterization that we are given from the outset.

And if the movie is truly about the destination, it's a long way to go for so sleight a punchline.

Little Miss Sunshine is hailed as an artistic movie that came out of obscurity to triumph. Instead, it serves as a cautionary tale for the seductiveness of advertisers; not all small films are good and Little Miss Sunshine starts with a weak script, populates the celluloid with mediocre acting (with the above-mentioned exceptions), stark direction and the result is a film that goes nowhere. There are much better small films, even if they did not receive the press of Little Miss Sunshine.

For other films with Abigail Breslin, please check out my reviews of:
Zombieland
Definitely, Maybe
No Reservations
The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement
Signs

3/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Mystery Of How So Many Talented Individuals Could Fail To Create Something Funny

The Good: Excellent cast, Decent concept, One or two moments of humor
The Bad: Terrible use of cast (poor acting), Simple and disappointing plot, Largely not funny!
The Basics: In a complete waste of time and talent, wonderful comic actors end up mired in a superhero dramedy fails to be funny or even entertaining.


Every now and then, there comes a film that has an awesome concept, a great cast, and a convincing trailer and it turns into such a miserable viewing experience for the viewer that it is almost enough to make one swear off movies (especially those featuring the performers in such an abomination) altogether. Mystery Men is one of those types of movies and whatever your hopes for the film are, odds are if you are a fan of any of the principle actors involved - like William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Janeane Garofalo, Eddie Izzard, and Ben Stiller - you will be woefully disappointed.

Champion City, a generic city in the United States, is a place populated by heroes, none greater than Captain Amazing. Captain Amazing has fallen on hard times and to make some money, he releases the villainous Casanova Frankenstein from prison. His plan soon goes awry and he ends up captured by the enemy. It then falls to a group of lesser, unimpressive superheroes to rise to the occasion to save Captain Amazing and Champion City. The fate of both is in the hands of the perpetually upset (though never usefully angry) Mr. Furious, the fork-throwing Blue Raja, the digging ace known as The Shoveller, the sardonic Bowler, the gassy Spleen, the (not really) Invisible Boy, and the inscrutable Sphynx.

The thing about Mystery Men is that in reading what I just wrote, the movie lived up to its entire potential. What I mean by that is that the only gag of substance in Mystery Men is the revelation of what the less than super powers of the characters are. So, for example, the first time the Blue Raja throws a fork, it's mildly amusing. When he does it repeatedly . . . well, it's stale by the second throw. Invisible Boy is a clever commentary; he reasons that because he is black and everyone ignores him he must be invisible. But that's the joke, it's done and in the movie it's a joke that is completely belabored.

And the less said about The Spleen the better. Yes, it's all fart jokes with him.

This is one of those terrible movies where all of the best material appears in the preview. If you've seen the trailer and enjoyed it, you've seen the cream of this movie. In fact, if you see the Smashmouth video for "All Star," you've seen the best footage from this movie - maybe it's even better without any of the dialogue.

The thing is, the characters in this film are not genuinely characters. Instead, they are jokes and once the joke is revealed (about a minute out of the movie), we're left with two hours of watching a series of jokes try to reinvent themselves over and over again. The best way to describe this movie is like seeing a high school student with a t-shirt with a phrase on it. The shirt says something like "I kiss better than your boyfriend," you read the shirt, evaluate the wearer, laugh or don't, and move on. When the person keeps coming by with that same t-shirt on, most people don't keep reading it over and over again. We got it the first time. Mystery Men is the type of one-trick pony that asks the viewer to continually reread the t-shirt, expecting that our reaction will be the same each time. And they're banking on that reaction being laughter.

Writers Bob Burden, Neil Cuthbert and Director Kinka Usher are lucky when they get the first laugh.

This is a startlingly un-funny movie for a film that has such comic talents as Paul Rubens (best known as Pee Wee Herman), Hank Azaria, Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo. These are people well known for making this reviewer laugh. I like their work. Yet here they are operating where the lines are not funny, the situation is not treated as funny and the jokes are mostly simple and stupid.

Unfortunately, there's not enough in the script even to allow the genuine acting talents to break out and impress the viewer with what they can do as far as presentation. William H. Macy is a favorite of mine and he was robbed of any awards for his masterful performance in Magnolia (reviewed here!). In Mystery Men, Macy plays The Shoveller and there is not enough written for him to do anything other than deliver the few lines he has, as best he can and let the performance die its quick death. Similarly, the truly great actress Lena Olin appears briefly in Mystery Men and is not given enough to work with to actually perform.

Adding to the poor writing, terrible characters and the generally low-quality of the acting, director Kinka Usher fails to create any visual sense with this movie that the film is progressing. The pace is belabored and weighed down with continual attempts to replay the same joke and Usher fails to make the film look good while slowly killing the audience with the same stale routines.

All in all, this is a movie that is an utter disappointment that fails to produce anything worthwhile despite having the potential in much of the talent to create something unique and entertaining. Save yourself two hours of life; find something else to watch this weekend!

For other superhero films, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Super
Kick-Ass
My Super Ex-Girlfriend

2/10

For other film reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Enjoyable, But Not Extraordinary, Baby Mama Is Fun.

The Good: Funny, Moments of character, Themes
The Bad: Acting is largely mediocre, Fairly predictable plot, DVD is light on bonus materials.
The Basics: When Kate wants to have a baby, but is told that she only has a one in a million chance of conceiving, she hires Angie to act as a surrogate, which leads to many comedic hijinks.


I might not be much of a fan of comedy films (in general), but my wife very much is into humor. Her DVD library is very much biased toward comedy movies and television shows. One of her favorites purchased from a discount DVD bin is Baby Mama. I understand how the economics of the DVD market works; when a movie comes out on DVD, there is a demand for it, but the price is usually at its highest. Then, after demand has dropped, extra units are sold off dirt cheap or a movie that is already well in the black is discounted in order to make a lot of profit without a lot of cost to consumers. While it is usually very easy for me to discern why a movie is in the discount bin – for example, in the case of Bride Wars (reviewed here!), that is the only way people would spend money on the movie! - Baby Mama seems like it would not deserve to be available for $5 or less on DVD.

Then again, it is a much more average comedy film than it is distinctive or compelling in any way. So, despite being populated by an impressive cast of Saturday Night Live-alums, Baby Mama is a tougher sell for a permanent collection . . . at regular DVD prices.

Kate chose the executive path for her life, but now at 37, she wants a baby. Her doctor, however, in forms her that the odds of her successfully getting pregnant are astronomical. So, she begins to look into other alternatives; most seriously, surrogacy. Kate chooses Angie as a surrogate and is initially excited when it seems that the implantation has taken. But soon, Angie’s personal life is interfering with Kate’s life. Angie and her commonlaw husband Carl have a fight and Kate offers Angie a place to stay.

With the move, Kate begins to assert more control over Angie’s life (especially her diet and health), much to the annoyance of Angie. As Kate works to get a new Round Earth store built and figure out a relationship with Rob, the owner of a local juice bar, she tries to manage Angie. But Angie has a secret and as Carl threatens to expose the truth, Angie’s sweet ride may come to an abrupt end.

Baby Mama is a generally funny movie that served as a vehicle for Tina Fey after 30 Rock began and was successful. It represents a chance for her to reunite with Amy Poehler and other Saturday Night Live performers, like Fred Armisen (who has a brief cameo role). And Baby Mama is very well cast. Fey is a believable executive-track woman and Amy Poehler is convincingly underclass as Angie. The supporting cast, which includes Sigourney Weaver, Steve Martin, Dax Shepard, Greg Kinnear, Romany Malco and Maura Tierney, is an impressive one, but they frequently outshine the headliners.

As much as I enjoy the works of Tina Fey, Baby Mama does more to illustrate that she is something of a one-trick actress than give her any real range. Fey’s role in Baby Mama is one that she presents virtually identically to her role of Liz Lemon on 30 Rock. There were several points in Baby Mama where I expected Fey’s Kate to grumble “nerds!” It does not happen, but much of her part in Baby Mama has the feel of “Liz Lemon Hires A Surrogate.”

In a similar fashion, Amy Poehler’s role in Baby Mama is hardly an audacious step for her as an actress. In fact, she slips into the part of Angie very easily and Poehler plays all of the ridiculous aspects of Angie’s character in a very familiar way through the bulk of the film. It does not help that part of Angie’s character arc is ridiculously predictable; Angie comes to want to keep the baby inside her instead of give it to Kate, as she is contracted to. With the character aspects seeming so familiar, the acting could save the role, but Poehler takes it in a predictable and very familiar direction.

Steve Martin, on the other hand, plays a delightfully zany, scene-stealing role in Baby Mama. As Kate’s employer, Barry, Martin shines by delivering many of the funniest lines in the film. Moreover, Martin is not using his physical comedy and the cerebral and odd Barry is quite different from other characters he has played. Steve Martin and Tina Fey play off one another exceptionally well in Baby Mama.

Baby Mama quickly mortgages its more serious elements, which skirt at addressing the glass ceiling/women in the corporate workplace issues and a theme of corporate greed (Rob is firmly anti-big business and Kate clearly wants to lean in that direction, but does not see herself as part of the problem that Rob details). In the place of fleshing out more of a statement from the film, Baby Mama includes ridiculous scenes like Kate and Angie going to Lamaze classes together where an instructor with a pretty severe accent (or impediment) dispenses zany birthing advice. For a movie that starts out feeling smart and funny, Baby Mama quickly goes for keeping the laughs coming, as opposed to delving deeper into any of the more serious themes. That makes sense, as Baby Mama is a comedy, but the whole scam aspect of Angie and Carl’s characters is unfortunately not funny and dominates the latter half of the film.

In the end, Baby Mama is not bad by any means, but it is not extraordinary either. This is a pretty amusing comedy that is entirely average. “Average” is the hallmark of the $5 bin, which might explain how Baby Mama got there!

For other works with Sigourney Weaver, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Cabin In The Woods
Paul
Cedar Rapids
Avatar
WALL-E
The Alien Quadrilogy
Annie Hall

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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I Suppose It Might Effect Those Still Eating In The Fast Food Nation.

The Good: Generally informative, Decent acting
The Bad: None of the characters pop, Message becomes overbearing, Overreaches itself
The Basics: Fast Food Nation fails to balance well between a documentary's informativeness and a sense of entertainment, resulting in an underwhelming viewing experience.


I cannot recall the last film I sat and watched where my reaction to it was that it was too ambitious, though I occasionally run into a movie where the writer and/or director attempts to take on a bit too much for the time frame. Bobby might have been the last movie where there was just one too many plot/character threads. Far too often, my problem is not that a movie is too ambitious, but rather that it does not try hard enough. It's a rare thing when a movie can manage to be both too full with plots or characters and also predictable (which is almost always one of the chief difficulties with a film that's not ambitious enough), yet Fast Food Nation manages to do that. Fast Food Nation is a broad work that explores the cattle processing plants and fast food industry in a Colorado city with a storytelling angle, as opposed to a documentary style.

Raul, his wife and her sister are Mexicans who cross into the United States illegally. Raul soon gets a job working at the local meat processing plant cleaning up the kill floor. His sister in law works in the same factory, mostly getting high and having sex with a supervisor there. Meanwhile, Amber, one of the workers at the local fast food establishment which is home to the Big One, becomes disenchanted with her job and falls in with a group of college students who are working to fight the powers of the fast food industry.

Enter Don Anderson, head of marketing for that company who is sent out to Colorado when his company faces a marketing nightmare: some college students tested some of the frozen burgers and found they were high in . . . . feces. Mmmm, yum. Don is sent to find out what the problem is and he essentially discovers that the problems are systemic and the viewer is treated to a series of lessons on where exactly the meat in fast food patties comes from and why they are so inexpensive for his company.

The problem with Fast Food Nation as an entertainment piece is that it is far too erratic and preachy to be genuinely entertaining. Sure, there's the cameo from Avril Lavigne as the disenchanted college student (which is pretty much her public persona anyway) and there's the surprise appearance of Bruce Willis midway through the picture, but outside moments like that, the film suffers because it is trying to tell far too many stories and the result is none of them get told very well.

Take, for example, the saga of Don. Don begins to learn the realities of the meat-packing industry, from the use of illegal immigrants in the factories to the presence of fecal matter in the meat. When he is disturbed by the revelations made to him, his contacts within the company simply respond that "they are fine if you cook them!" He is outraged, as writer/director Richard Linklater no doubt intends the audience to be. Don leaves the film about halfway through with a sense of indignation and the plan to risk his life, wellbeing and career to stand up for what is right. As the closing credits begin rolling, his story is simply resolved with a scene that completely lacks any real sense of resolution because it robs the viewer of his character struggle and process between where he left the movie and where he pops back up.

Similarly, while the movie starts with a strong presence of Raul and his journey, he and his family exit the movie for most of the beginning and middle so that Don can have his story. By the time we revisit Raul, we do not genuinely care about his struggle. And watching him and his family devolve into drug addicts and the miseries of whoredom becomes something of a pointless exercise. Why? Because by the point in the movie when Raul's story becomes front and center again, it is pretty much to be predicted what will happen with him and his wife.

Part of the problem is certainly structural. In the first half of the film, Don is given a great deal of information. Don is told about the various evils of the meat packing industry and all of the terrible things that he is not being shown until he cannot even eat his company's product. The viewer gets it. There's a lot of exposition, there are a lot of people telling Don (and the audience) just what the stakes of the game are. We get it. The latter half of the film, with Raul, simply shows virtually everything that the viewer has already been told.

So the movie has a sense of being more multiple personalities than a rich tapestry. Amber's story seems almost redundant and pointless for the brief time she is focused on. The problem here is that Fast Food Nation makes the argument that there are systemic problems in the food supply, but illustrates no genuine hope for changing it. In fact, it does just the opposite. Amber and her friends are completely ineffectual.

As a result, most of the character quickly begin to feel like "types" as opposed to individuals. Don is a pretty generic cog in the machine suit who learns the evils of the world he works in and is faced with a decision about what to do about that. Raul is the immigrant everyman whose life is turned upside down b moving to the United States where every argument for a better life is gutted as he becomes a drug addict and his wife decides she will do anything to make money for their family. It's a pretty predictable storyline and in the absence of real characters, the film suffers and begins to take on the feel of a lecture.

Indeed, on DVD, Fast Food Nation is a virtual baseball bat to beat the viewer over the head with information. The bonus features are almost exclusively reiterations of the arguments contained in the film. One of them, "The Backwards Burger" animated short, traces the process of making fast food meat patties back from the burger to the cow and basically acts as an educational substitute for the two hour film. It's about as entertaining as Fast Food Nation ultimately is.

What the movie does have going for it, in place of entertainment, is the presence of actors who are acting well. Greg Kinnear does well as Don, taking his enthusiastic smile and slowly working it away as his character takes in the information being thrown at him. Wilmer Valderrama is completely convincing as Raul and he holds the viewer's attention quite well in all of his scenes.

But ultimately, the enlightenment that one receives from Fast Food Nation might be better gotten from a documentary, like Super Size Me (reviewed here!) and the entertainment value is not on par with similar movies, like Thank You For Smoking (reviewed here!). Instead, there is so much going on that none of it is well developed and despite seeing actors in very different roles, none of the roles here are particularly great. The result is a thoroughly average film.

For other works with Luis Guzman, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Old Dogs
He’s Just Not That Into You
Yes Man
Waiting . . .
Magnolia

5/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Almost As Good As A Film Could Be: As Good As It Gets!

The Good: Amusing, Good acting, Interesting characters, Less than predictable plot
The Bad: Nothing major, Elements of predictability
The Basics: Entertaining, emotional and witty, As Good As It Gets comes close to a perfect comedy by not trying to be unnecessarily funny.


As Good As It Gets is an attempt to make a romantic comedy into something more and something different. It succeeds at the former and almost makes it as the latter. Were it not for the very end of the film and minutiae throughout, As Good As It Gets could live up to its title.

Melvin Udall is a novelist of apparently some success and import. He's obsessive compulsive and probably a hypochondriac. He is determined not to step on cracks in the sidewalk or any surface he walks on, creates an orderly environment where he writes his works and the hypochondria is evident in his obsession with germs and his bringing his own plasticware to the restaurant he habitually dines in.

Being such a pain, only one person in the restaurant who can stand - or handle - Melvin is Carol. Carol puts up with Melvin and they get on despite Melvin's crass remarks. Melvin also offends his neighbor Simon with his open homophobia and ethnic prejudice. The film's action is simple: Melvin offends Carol with a comment about her ailing son and Simon gets mugged. He gets beat up seriously. Melvin is compelled to take care of Simon's dog and in the process, Melvin extends kindness to Carol by getting health care for her ailing son.

The film hinges on the use of the characters around the protagonist. Melvin is an unlikable protagonist and he is surrounded by good and vibrant people. Carol is a wonderful character, Simon is well defined and interesting. He is crushed physically and emotionally throughout the film and it is through Simon that the film becomes something more than a romantic comedy. He's not funny, he's real and that in itself is wonderful.

The minutiae that keep the film from perfection are in Melvin. So much of the film is gotten right with him: he's a germophobe and has a stainless steel refrigerator, he leaves a restaurant with a dress code rather than wear the provided common outfit. And yet, his transformation does not read right in the time frame. While I believe the power of unconditional love is great, but it does not undo at least forty years of prejudice and inconsiderate behavior. And while the argument may be made that Melvin's kindness to Carol and her son is self-serving, it's a weak argument.

The flaw with the end is that, after all the ways the remainder of the film defies the expectation of a romantic comedy, it does not live up to our expectations that the film will continue to challenge us in its resolution.

What works is that - even with the character flaws in the arc of Melvin - the acting is consistently great. Jack Nicholson is wonderful and sardonic as Melvin. Helen Hunt - between this and Pay It Forward (reviewed here!) - proves she can play well a character quite different from herself. Wonderful! Greg Kinnear plays Simon wonderfully with depth that is lacking from so many characters in today's works. Cuba Gooding Jr. performs well as Simon's partner.

When As Good As It Gets attempts humor, it succeeds, when it tries serious and deep, it excels. This film is perfect for those who enjoyed the short-lived series Sports Night (reviewed here!) and is a fine choice for anyone who wants more of their comedies than funny and predictable.

For other works with Jack Nicholson, please visit my reviews of:
The Departed
Terms Of Endearment
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

9/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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What If Ally McBeal Was On Once and Again? Someone Like You

The Good: Moments of humor, Adequate social commentary
The Bad: Stiff acting, Neither end is terribly convincing, Utter lack of conviction, Inconsistent characterization
The Basics: Social commentary that rings true isn't enough to save Someone Like You, which seems to thrive on the unfortunate follies of people desperate for emotional fulfillment.


Sigh. Whenever I'm tempted to begin a review with a sigh, I know it's going to be one of those rare occasions where I am actually stretching to come up with one hundred words to dignify a work. Someone Like You is one such instance. Sigh. Where to start?

Someone Like You follows Jane Goodale on the development of her "new cow theory," which basically analogizes men to cows in their dating habits. The IMDB plot outline calls this a "sexist column." I think there's some room for argument there, however, Jane falls for a guy named Ray Brown. Ray has been in a long term relationship, but falls in love with her. So, Ray and Jane are all set to move in together when Ray goes back to the woman he was with and Jane is left without a place to live (as she had already gotten out of her lease and someone new was moving into her place). So, she ends up moving in with Eddie, the office chauvinist, a man she's spent the first half of the film despising.

I think you see where this is going.

My positive part of the review comes now: I laughed a few times. There were moments of humor. More than that, the film makes a pretty fair social commentary on men and women in today's society. The "new cow theory" pretty much pegs the stereotypical male in U.S. society. Yes, exceptions abound, but the bulk of infidelity does seem to come from one partner (not necessarily the male) simply wanting something new, not even necessarily a lack of love. And Jane represents a fundamental archetype in today's society; the late twenties/early thirties woman who is in a romantic quest in such fear that she'll be loveless that she forgoes common sense. For those who would instantly combat me in this point, I challenge by asking this: why is it women in film, television, and - incidentally - reality are shocked when the man they love is willing to break up a long term relationship they're in for them and then go back to the one they left them for or another person entirely? In simpler terms, why haven't we seen a character who avoids breaking up a relationship because they make the rather obvious logical deduction that "if he's willing to break up that relationship, someone else could break up our relationship, too?" Well, Jane is not that character; she's shocked when Ray backs out of the relationship. I, however, wasn't.

In those terms, Someone Like You captures realism well and for a key demographic! I think it's a current societal trend more than a long standing nature of genders, but I think this adequately captures the somewhat young people of our time.

Well, one of the major problems there is in the resolution. I think the film is fairly obvious and by reading my plot outline, you might have a pretty good idea who ends up with whom. After moving in, Jane discovers that Eddie isn't as much of a pig as she originally thought and it goes from there. The thing is, sometimes characters are characters and the realism element has to come in. The "love where we least expect it" thing works well when it's somewhat compatible people, not complete opposites. Of course, Someone Like You seeks to prove that it's the latter, but that to realize you like that you have to open your eyes to it. Next time you see someone you truly dislike, walk up to them and have a three minute conversation about anything. In that conversation, try as hard as you can to imagine actually loving them, kissing them and having a conversations longer than three minutes where you don't feel at all awkward. Odds are, you'll stop halfway through this exercise and say "I don't like this person!" And the truth is, humans are discriminatory animals, that's why we have reviewers; to help you discriminate. If I tell you all about a film I saw that has actors you don't like, in situations you couldn't care less about, odds are you won't watch it (assuming you trust me!) and if you do, odds are you'll be severely disappointed. Why? There are things you don't like.

My point is, I'm sick of films where characters have things they like and don't like and yet suddenly decide to like someone that embodies all of those things they don't like. Yes, occasionally we may be surprised. More often than not, though . . .

In Someone Like You, it's somewhat magnified. Why? First, in the characterization. Jane truly doesn't like what Eddie embodies. Eddie, for his part, is somewhat distressing. Sometimes, people are simple. All of the surface behaviors Eddie embodies seem to contradict the "deeper person" Eddie reveals upon closer inspection. The thing is, people who are truly sensitive and such to the levels Eddie seems to become would have a difficult time maintaining the facade.

Second, the acting. There is no chemistry in this film. Ashley Judd is fine by herself. She plays Jane Goodale with humor like Ally McBeal and earnestness and emotional honesty of Lily from Once And Again. The problem is, these are not necessarily terribly compatible. But assuming they are, that's how Judd plays Jane and she's fine. But she has no chemistry on screen with either Greg Kinnear (Ray) or Hugh Jackman (Eddie). There is nothing between any of them. Hugh Jackman (perhaps the ideal Wolverine in X-Men) is stiff as Eddie. If you see the case for this film, it even comes through on the cover; his smile is so forced. He's playing a relaxed character and it's not working. At all; he's not relaxed.

Finally, on the plot front, there's a whole subplot with Jane's sister and her husband trying to have a baby and that feels completely added. Someone reading this might suggest that it was part of the book from which this film came, but - if that is the case - here it doesn't fit. It's not developed enough, it's not important to the story and it distracts from the film's momentum rather than add anything to the characters.

There are two endings to the film on the DVD. I didn't buy either of them. In the standard version, Jackman is especially stiff and it seemed to lack any sense of realism or, truly, romanticism. The other version, well, I liked where it ended more than how it ended, but still . . .

Any time I am tempted to end my review with ellipses, well, that usually doesn't bode well. Neither does Someone Like You. Hold out for the real thing; don't watch this for a placebo.

For other movies with Marisa Tomei, please check out my reviews of:
Crazy Stupid Love.
Cyrus
What Women Want

3/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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